The present invention relates generally to wearable computing devices and, more particularly, to instant messaging status reporting based on smart watch activity.
Instant Messaging (IM) systems, such as Facebook® Messenger, Skype®, and WhatsApp®, and corporate IM systems, allow users to set a status indicating their availability. IM status can be set in two ways: automated or manual. An automated status is set automatically by the IM system. Values such as “Active”, “Away” are determined by user activity (e.g., whether the user has moved their mouse, opened the app, etc., within a given period of time). Values such as “In a Meeting” are set by integrating with resources such as a user's calendar. A manual status is set manually by the user.
The primary purpose of IM status is to inform message senders of the availability of the message recipient. It allows message senders to answer questions such as “is this a good time to send a message to this person?” and “how likely is it I will receive a response from this person right now?” Oftentimes the IM status assigned to a given user is a poor indicator of their true availability. A person with an IM status of “Active” might actually be busy performing other tasks. A person with a status of “Away” might quickly become active when they receive a message notification. Using only user activity and integration with resources such as calendars is insufficient for accurate IM status reporting.
Current IM status reporting is notoriously inaccurate as it uses only a few unreliable factors to determine what a given user is currently doing. This presents a problem to IM message senders, who do not know if potential recipients are truly available or not. With smart watches the problem is worse as the recipient appears to always be online and available, as notifications can always be received and displayed by their smart watch.